Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be attending Nitish Kumar's swearing-in ceremony on November 20. Instead, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Rajiv Pratap Rudy will be representing the PM at Nitish's oath oath taking event in Patna.
Nitish had called up Modi to invite him for the event. A number of leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are expected to attend the event. Punjab Deputy CM and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Badal, Shiv Sena chief Udhav Thackeray will be represented by Subhash Desai and Ramdas Kadam.
Nitish will be taking oath as the chief minister of Bihar for the 4th time on November 20 will witness convergence of non-BJP parties. A number of chief ministers of non-BJP ruled states will attend Nitish's swearing in Patna's iconic Gandhi maidan.
Among those who have been invited and are likely to attend the event are Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, UP CM, Akhilesh Yadav and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has also confirmed that he will be attending the ceremony.
BJP Patna MP Shatrughan Sinha is also likely to be present in the ceremony.
On being asked about the invitation, Bihar BJP Vice President Sanjay Mayukh said that PM due to his "prior fixed programmes" might not be able to attend the ceremony.
He said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of State (Independent Charge) Rajiv Pratap Rudy would represent the Union government at the swearing-in function. The PM had congratulated Kumar on the day of the poll results on November 8 over the grand secular alliance's massive victory in Bihar.
The sources in CMO said Kumar had also telephoned Union Home minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and other central ministers and invited them for the oath ceremony.
Comments
0 comment